Cardboard Kayak Race, Redux

Last year, I wrote about the first annual Cardboard Kayak Race, held on City of Water Day at Governors Island. This year, I was in it!

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. We didn’t build a boat out of cardboard and then race it. But others did! And I was part of a fleet of “safety kayaks” whose job it was to rescue paddlers whose cardboard boats sank (and fish out the sodden detritus).

The challenge was straightforward: Each team (of up to 6 people) had to build a kayak from nothing but cardboard and tape. Specifically, the materials provided were: 10 sheets of 6 ft by 6ft corrugated cardboard; 3 rolls of black gaffing tape; and 10 rolls of clear waterproof packing tape. Teams could bring their own tools, including wooden jigs, tape measures, knives, and the like. But the final product had to be constructed of nothing but the cardboard and tape supplied.

The term “kayak” was largely notional: Any design was acceptable, so long as it floated and could be paddled by two team members. Many boats, including some of the best performing, had high sides and a flat bottom. And one intrepid team built a cardboard paddleboard!

The racers had 2 hours to design and build the boats. Then it was time to race! The course ran out from Governors Island’s Pier 101 to a white buoy about 50 yards away; racers paddled out to the buoy, turned around, and paddled back.

The only catch? The race had several heats, and the winning boats then raced each other in semi-finals and the final. So the (increasingly waterlogged) cardboard of the winning boats had to withstand as many as three trips. And as the rules rather drolly state, “Boats that disintegrate mid-race will be disqualified.”

What happened? Did boats disintegrate? And who won?

Watch the slideshow to see. I will say that the final race was a nailbiter, pitting a beautifully-designed honest-to-God kayak (manned by two veteran paddlers from the North Brooklyn Boat Club) against last year’s reigning champions, Stevens Institute of Technology, in a deep-sided, flat-bottomed craft. Vlad captured the whole exciting story from his vantage point on dry land.

(Click on any photo to start slideshow—and be sure to read the captions!)

The raw materials (photo by Johna)

The kayak-makers

Taking shape

Measuring it out

What is it?

The scene on Kayak Hill

Serious business

Everyone can help

Boxy

There’s plenty of tape

This looks like a sturdy, seaworthy boat

Conference

Patriotic

This one really looks like a kayak

Waterproof compartments :-)

Close attention

Careful inspection

Hands

Neat and trim

Rotate!

Final wrap

Team effort

This one has a long way to go still…

Spectators

Just a few minutes of building time left

It’s done! A formal portrait of the SS Stevens and crew—last year’s winners!

U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary will challenge

Magic inscriptions will keep the ship safe

Nautically appropriate decorations

Plenty of cardboard left for matching headgear

It’s as ready as it will ever be

Banana figurehead

All kayaks are assembled

The kayaks for the first heat are carried down to the dock. SS Stevens comes first. Whether intentionally or not, it has a swede form…

Carried by their crews. Note the keep fin!

More a pram than a kayak ;-)

In the water

And they’re off!!

SS Stevens has a good start. The paddlers are well synchronized :-)

The others follow in its wake

… but SS Stevens has already rounded the buoy

… and cruises …

… to victory in the first heat

The battle for second place

Everyone reacts…

… a bit differently…

… to the experience

The kayaks for the second heat come down. First the banana boat…

Into the water… and a capsize right at the dock!!

They remount… but not for long

Monitor vs. Merrimack?

Sharp turn around the buoy

… and all out for home!

Nancy and Tim

Oops!

They are determined!

Still, with everyone else capsized, the banana boat wins this one

But behind, a desperate struggle unfolds

They make it back :-)

Johna and Erik retrieve the fallen

… to be hauled off ignominiously

Third heat

A little nervous, perhaps?

Watching and wondering when their turn will come…

They were right to be nervous

… and their turn comes soon enough

They try to remount

The Coast Guard Auxiliary powers by

…. leaving the rescuing to others, for once

Cruising to victory in the third heat

The green kayaks clean up the course

Unwieldy whale

Fourth heat

Into the boats

Will the pontoons help?

A folding kayak!

Johna (and Erik) to the rescue!

Fish it out, bring it back to the dock

… and haul it away!

Fifth heat

A chaotic start

Note the unique push-pull crew arrangement at top left…

Collision and capsize!

Remount! … or at least remount attempt…

The Coast Guard, well synchronized, has gone round the buoy and cruises back through the carnage

Easy victory in the fifth heat

Behind, multiple rescues are in progress

Swimming back to the dock

Bring in the casualties

Haul them away

the first semi-final!

The banana boat looks a bit bedraggled, while the trim shark awaits

But the crew is willing

They barely leave the dock

… before doom overtakes them

The shark…

… cruises to victory

The second semi-final!

Powerful teams both

They go all out

… but these guys are just a bit too good

And now the final!! Tension builds…

SS Stevens vs. The Whitefish

SS Stevens comes round the buoy first!

The Whitefish powers round

… but SS Stevens has a big lead

SS Stevens wins the 2014 Con Edison Cardboard Kayak Race!

… with The Whitefish in second place

Smiles of victory

Motivation revealed

After the race, The Whitefish goes out for a spin… just a little too sharp a spin

Cowboy self-rescue on a cardboard kayak

Back on the boat!

… for a moment, at least

And now The Whitefish heads…

… along with all the others, into the great Graveyard of Cardboard Kayaks

Hi Frank–Spot on. The tape provides a lot more than just waterproofing. If you pay close attention to the SS Stephens boat (along with others) you’ll see that its tensile strength is an important part of the design….. Good stuff! Thanks for reading, and posting.

Thank you so much for the story and photos! Our team had 4 kids ages 9-11 (the pram design :), and protective decorations!) so while we paddled, only some shaky video was recorded. Nice to have these memories!

Of course!! :) But, hey, our craft was sound enough that hours later, after the race, we were able to take all the kids out for a short spin. I would post a pic of that here, but don’t know how! I posted some of your pics with attribution and a link to your blog on my Facebook page. Thanks again!

(To answer your technical question, it’s a matter of where the photo resides. If your photo is hosted somewhere publicly accessible, you can just post the link in a comment here for it to be displayed. Otherwise, you would have to send the actual photo to us for it to be hosted here, and displayed.)

I know all about memories, and am glad to have preserved some for you! Looking through my photos, I see I have some others of your team that I didn’t use (there were just too many photos!). If you would like to have them, let me know (you can contact us through the “Contact Us!” page) :-)

As Frank Winters commented above, these are really tape vessels with cardboard backing. So the more tape, the more waterproof the boat will be. Without enough tape, the cardboard will get soggy and disintegrate quite soon. And the tape ensures that all the parts hold together—if you put the tape in the right places. Many of the boats folded up right away. And of course nothing will help you if your boat is seriously unstable and capsizes repeatedly…

I cannot help but laugh looking at the photos. I feel like I was there. What a fun event for everyone. It would have made me sick to my stomach just laughing at the mishaps esp. Everyone’s a great sport.

Some out for a duck, some in for a duck. What super fun you all seem to have had. Tell me – did anybody lazily opt for a raft and – had it been lashing rain, would the event have still gone ahead? Thanks for giving me this chuckle Johna and Vladimir. Terrific post.

but that was no means a lazy solution. On the contrary, it took a lot of hard work to build up many layers of cardboard into a structure that was flat and stiff, with a lot of empty space inside so that it would float high enough. (Unfortunately, theirs proved to be not quite watertight, I think, and gradually filled up with water and started to capsize during the race…)

Lashing rain? That normally shouldn’t have stopped the event—kayakers are used to getting wet, although there might have been fewer spectators with fancy cameras—but, on the other hand, the cardboard might have gotten wet before its time…

I bow to thee N & T, well done, both of you. As for you, Johna and Vladimir, you have me singing again whilst Messing About on the River. Glad it didn’t rain and dissolve all the crafts too soon, such Jolly Boating Weather,…what!?

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Authors

Vladimir Brezina (RIP)
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.

Johna Till Johnson
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.